Why start a narrative podcast? Because even for two longtime writers, podcasting helped us truly find our voice.

This is true in the literal sense of practicing voiceover and narration skills, but also in the metaphorical sense of accepting ourselves as creators and people. In our experience, this is a unique benefit of podcasting because each of us has a unique life background — and unique sound.

But you could make the above observation about “finding one’s voice” even about an unscripted podcast or interview show as well.

So what is it about narrative podcasting that is special?

Our answer to this goes back to what we put on our About page: the view that storytelling, and story-making, are essential parts of what make us human. From cave paintings to cathedrals, traveling minstrels to touring comedians, stories are what bring us together, transmit culture, and help us piece together meaning from the often random shards of experience life throws at us.

But it’s not just us saying this, but the many experts that we draw from for the curriculum, everyone from legendary screenwriting teacher Robert McKee, to arch-mistress of creative self-help Julia Cameron, to writing practice expert Natalie Goldberg, Pulitzer prize-winning novelist Anthony Doerr, and many more.

We’re also not just saying this as armchair podcasting philosophers, but from the depths of deep experience: it was making 200 episodes of our scripted podcast Shelter in Place that helped us navigate life during these turbulent years from 2020 to May 2022. Our progression of taglines illustrated our ongoing quest for understanding: first “seeking sanity in a world that feels increasingly insane,” (season 1, early pandemic 2020), then season two was our “pandemic Odyssey (as we, like so many others, migrated to get help from family during Covid), then finally, for season three, it was “the search for home” and “embracing the journey in a world forever changed.”

So it’s not just memorable audio storytelling skills that we want to pass on — but the skills to navigate life. We believe that scripted podcasting can be as transformative for each of you as it has been for us.